Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., is panning Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s recently released immigration plan because he feels it is unrealistic.
“Looking from what he put together, that he would build a fence and have the Mexican government pay for it and would double or increase fees on activity, delay remittances or block remittances, it’s not realistic, it’s not a serious plan in my view,” Flake told Fox News host Gretchen Carlson Monday.
Trump contends birthright citizenship has been the biggest magnet for illegal immigration, since it entices immigrants to have their children in the United States in order to ensure they have U.S. citizenship status. Flake disagrees, saying economic opportunity is the biggest draw for illegal immigrants, and he’s backed up in some reports that show immigration surging when the U.S. economy rebounds and adds jobs.
“There have been issues and obviously people gaming the 14th Amendment,” he told Carlson. The birthright provision is in that amendment, which says “all persons born or naturalized in the United States … are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.”
“I don’t see that as their big draw to come here,” Flake said. “Mostly, it is the economy and for people who want a better life. Obviously, we need better border security. We need a mechanism to deal with those who are illegally here now.”
The junior senator from Arizona was one of the Republicans that helped draft the “Gang of 8” bipartisan immigration overhaul, which many conservatives say went too far by creating a pathway to citizenship. Flake pushed back on that assertion telling Carlson, “If you look at the plan the Senate put together and passed, it had significant border enforcement. It had a way for those who are here to get right with the law but not with amnesty. They had to go to the back of the line if they wanted to regularize their status.”
Flake’s criticism came shortly after Trump won the praise of one the Senate’s most strident opponents of the Gang of 8 bill or President Obama’s executive action on immigration: Alabama Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions.
